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The USA isn’t bereft of ideas to supposedly fix what ails it: raise taxes or cut spending, raise the debt limit or live within its means, reform Medicare or expand free medical care, invest in public education or offer choice in education, invest in green energy or drill for oil, invade other countries or defend the nation’s shores, pray to God in school or pray to the state in school, salute the flag or burn the flag, vote Democrat or vote Republican, watch CNBC or watch Fox News, and be fixated on Lady Gaga or on Weiner’s weenie.

None of these distractions will fix the country. They won’t fix it because they don’t address the root problem.

The root problem is theft. Theft has become the main activity of the U.S. government (and state governments). Instead of taking some money from all people to pay for the few public goods and services that cannot be provided by free markets and charities, the government now takes a lot of money from a minority of people for the unlimited benefit of a majority of people.

This can’t end in anything but bankruptcy.

The list of larcenies would run for more than 50 pages. Examples include crop subsidies given to farmers, subsidies of every description given to rent-seeking corporations (hello, General Electric), school lunches given to obese kids, handouts beyond imagination given to able-bodied and able-minded slackers, rich pensions given to avaricious public employees, and free medical care given to liars who say they can’t afford medical care as they drive expensive cars, gorge on unhealthy food, and mortgage their futures to buy every new gizmo and gadget.

Then there is the double-theft of Social Security and Medicare. After making phony actuarial assumptions about the programs, the government committed the first theft by confiscating people’s lifetime FICA payments--which were inadequate to pay the promised benefits in retirement--and spending the payments on other things. It is now committing the second theft by sending the bills for its lies and larceny to future generations.

All of this theft has created a feeding frenzy, where the objective is to steal from your neighbor before he steals from you. It’s as if we’re all swimming in shark-infested waters with bloody hams tied to our backs.

The absurd justifications and rationalizations for eating our neighbors are an insult to whatever intelligence and morals are left in the nation. The feeders speak of social justice, fairness, compassion, and, especially, the children, while they devour their neighbors’ hams. And then the media, which never had much intelligence or morals, runs story after story sympathetic to the feeders instead of their victims.

Eggheads in academia teach a similar slant to college kids with yolks for brains, as they enjoy their tenured positions that depend on government grants, student indebtedness, and serf-like graduate assistants who do the work of the pampered professoriate for little pay. Like their fellow egghead in the White House, these feeders despise the bourgeoisie, are steeped in leftist cant, and want to destroy what is left of the market economy that funds their privileged positions.

It’s no surprise, then, to hear students sniveling and demonstrating about the unfairness of tuition increases at state colleges. Because no one has told them where money comes from, and because they have grown up in a kleptomaniac nation, it doesn’t dawn on them that much of their education is paid in taxes by working stiffs who don’t attend college and who earn less then what they will earn after graduation. Nor does it dawn on reporters, who also didn’t learn much in college, to ask the whining students about the fairness of this.

One has to watch voyeuristic shows like “Judge Judy” or “Judge Joe Brown” instead of the mainstream news to know what many of the feeders are like. Ironically, such shows are a big hit with the feeders themselves, probably because they know the truth.

The nation was doomed to bankruptcy the first time that Americans--and thus government--justified the taking of money from some people for the benefit of other people, instead of for the true general welfare. Such original sin, which took place before the Founders had died, set a precedent and led to convoluted court decisions and purposeful misreading of the Constitution to justify an endless succession of theft.

Unless Americans stop all theft, the government will have no choice but to resort to the biggest theft of all times. Unable to cut the federal debt by honest means, politicians will cut it dishonestly. They will debase the dollar even more than they have already, relying on the burglary rings of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and the rest of the banking cartel to do the stealing in the middle of the night, unseen by citizens and the media, who will be too distracted by gagas and wieners to notice.

In the meantime, stay out of the water and try to hide your ham and wiener.

The fix for the country that no one is talking aboutby Mencken's Ghost

The USA isn't bereft of ideas to supposedly fix what ails it: raise taxes or cut spending, raise the debt limit or live within its means, reform Medicare or expand free medical care, invest in public education or offer choice in education, invest in green energy or drill for oil, invade other countries or defend the nation's shores, pray to God in school or pray to the state in school, salute the flag or burn the flag, vote Democrat or vote Republican, watch CNBC or watch Fox News, and be fixated on Lady Gaga or on Weiner's weenie.

None of these distractions will fix the country.They won't fix it because they don't address the root problem.The root problem is theft.

Theft has become the main activity of the U.S. government (and state governments). Instead of taking some money from all people to pay for the few public goods and services that cannot be provided by free markets and charities, the government now takes a lot of money from a minority of people for the unlimited benefit of a majority of people.

This can't end in anything but bankruptcy.

The list of larcenies would run for more than 50 pages. Examples include crop subsidies given to farmers, subsidies of every description given to rent-seeking corporations (hello, General Electric), school lunches given to obese kids, handouts beyond imagination given to able-bodied and able-minded slackers, rich pensions given to avaricious public employees, and free medical care given to liars who say they can't afford medical care as they drive expensive cars, gorge on unhealthy food, and mortgage their futures to buy every new gizmo and gadget.

Then there is the double-theft of Social Security and Medicare. After making phony actuarial assumptions about the programs, the government committed the first theft by confiscating people's lifetime FICA payments--which were inadequate to pay the promised benefits in retirement--and spending the payments on other things. It is now committing the second theft by sending the bills for its lies and larceny to future generations.

All of this theft has created a feeding frenzy, where the objective is to steal from your neighbor before he steals from you. It's as if we're all swimming in shark-infested waters with bloody hams tied to our backs.

The absurd justifications and rationalizations for eating our neighbors are an insult to whatever intelligence and morals are left in the nation. The feeders speak of social justice, fairness, compassion, and, especially, the children, while they devour their neighbors' hams. And then the media, which never had much intelligence or morals, runs story after story sympathetic to the feeders instead of their victims.

Eggheads in academia teach a similar slant to college kids with yolks for brains, as they enjoy their tenured positions that depend on government grants, student indebtedness, and serf-like graduate assistants who do the work of the pampered professoriate for little pay. Like their fellow egghead in the White House, these feeders despise the bourgeoisie, are steeped in leftist cant, and want to destroy what is left of the market economy that funds their privileged positions.

It's no surprise, then, to hear students sniveling and demonstrating about the unfairness of tuition increases at state colleges. Because no one has told them where money comes from, and because they have grown up in a kleptomaniac nation, it doesn't dawn on them that much of their education is paid in taxes by working stiffs who don't attend college and who earn less then what they will earn after graduation. Nor does it dawn on reporters, who also didn't learn much in college, to ask the whining students about the fairness of this.

One has to watch voyeuristic shows like “Judge Judy” or “Judge Joe Brown” instead of the mainstream news to know what many of the feeders are like. Ironically, such shows are a big hit with the feeders themselves, probably because they know the truth.

The nation was doomed to bankruptcy the first time that Americans--and thus government--justified the taking of money from some people for the benefit of other people, instead of for the true general welfare. Such original sin, which took place before the Founders had died, set a precedent and led to convoluted court decisions and purposeful misreading of the Constitution to justify an endless succession of theft.

Unless Americans stop all theft, the government will have no choice but to resort to the biggest theft of all times. Unable to cut the federal debt by honest means, politicians will cut it dishonestly. They will debase the dollar even more than they have already, relying on the burglary rings of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and the rest of the banking cartel to do the stealing in the middle of the night, unseen by citizens and the media, who will be too distracted by gagas and wieners to notice.

In the meantime, stay out of the water and try to hide your ham and wiener.

Mr. Obama's state of the union address was this, it was that, it was another thing, he should have said this, he didn't say that, this was true, untrue, twisted, spun, deceptive, hope-filled, dope-filled, accurate, fair and balanced, blah blah blah.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

Page Nine special guest columnist Craig Cantoni is the only one who got it right:

It's embarrassing to admit this, but the reason I haven't watched a State of the Union (SOTU) address in 20 years is that I'm a slow learner. If I had been a fast learner, I would have had my epiphany and stopped watching long before 20 years ago.

The delayed epiphany was this: that the SOTU is a charade put on by both political parties and the players in the audience, including members of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the head of the Federal Reserve, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the "news" media. All of them know that the SOTU and other solemn performances throughout the year are designed to distract citizens from the ugly truth.

The ugly truth is that the federal government is insolvent, meaning that it can't pay all of its debts, obligations, and promises. And it is insolvent because it is deceitful, dishonest, and corrupt. Everyone in the SOTU audience is guilty of a massive fraud. Instead of wearing expensive suits in a marble room, they should be wearing striped uniforms in a federal cell of bare concrete.

Their crimes are many. Let's look at the four most serious ones.

First, the official accounting books of the United States are cooked. The government's own auditor, the General Accounting Administration, has said so, but in nicer words. Among other cooking, the books don't account for all of the government's liabilities. A full accounting would show that the government's true indebtedness is nearly $100 trillion.

Second, the miscreants know that there is no money in the Social Security Trust Fund. They have been robbing the fund to pay for their salaries, their marble offices, their large staffs, and their jaunts around the world on military airplanes.

Third, they know that the Capitol Mall is a Potemkin village of monuments, museums, reflecting pools, and other tourist attractions. Behind the facades are huge, out-of-control, unaccountable bureaucracies, staffed with minions who, on average, are paid twice as much as the average American worker in a real job in the private sector.

If Americans wanted a real education about the workings of their government, they wouldn't come to Washington and visit the Smithsonian. They'd demand a tour of the Department of Agriculture, which is housed in a granite building just a rotten tomato's throw from the Mall. Three stories high, two blocks wide, and three blocks long, it is the most visible example of all that is wrong in Washington. Does anyone really believe that farmers wouldn't grow crops, food companies wouldn't process the crops, and supermarkets wouldn't sell groceries if the building were to be razed and the employees had to find real work?

Fourth, the biggest crime of all takes place at the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve. In a complicated shell game that the average citizen doesn't understand and the media doesn't illuminate, money is created out of thin air in these houses of ill-repute. Or to be more accurate, the fiat money of the national government is debauched in a sordid menage a trois for the benefit of the johns in the White House and Congress and their banker friends. In a very real sense, the johns are covering up their corruption with Monopoly money.

Since 1913, when the Federal Reserve was created, the purchasing power of the dollar has fallen by over 95 percent. When FDR abandoned the gold standard, the debauchment turned into a screw-the-public orgy that would make Tiger Woods envious. Later, all remaining spending restraint was removed when Nixon closed the gold window to foreign governments.

Unless the four crimes are soon stopped and punished, the U.S. will end up as just another country in a long line of countries that spent themselves to death with phony money.

I didn't watch the SOTU charade last night, but I know that President Obama didn't talk about any of these crimes. That's because he is a criminal like everyone else who was there.

In a shocking reversal, the United Nations has come out against New World Order dogma about diversity and global warming. It has concluded that the best countries for human development are racially homogenous, as long as the dominant race is white or Asian. And if that's not enough political incorrectness, the top country in human development in the U.N.'s eyes has funded its rich social spending with -- gasp! -- offshore oil production.

Well, admittedly, the U.N. didn't state its conclusion that directly, and the mainstream media didn't report it that directly; but anyone with a grain of intelligence and an ounce of knowledge could read between the lines and reach that unspoken conclusion. That means that no one in Congress, the White House, the media, teachers unions, or the professoriate could reach the conclusion.

The conclusion can be easily drawn by everyone else from the U.N.'s recently released annual index of human development, which ranks 182 countries by such factors as education, per-capita income, and life expectancy. The top ten countries are listed below. I have added in parentheses the percentage of their populations that is white and, if they have a large Asian population, the percentage that is Asian. (The percentages are estimated from other sources for those countries that don't report their racial composition.)

1. Norway (98% white)

2. Australia (92% white and 7% Asian)

3. Iceland (94% white)

4. Canada (66% white and 11% Asian)

5. Ireland (94.9% white and 1.3% Asian)

6. The Netherlands (85.7% white and 2.4% Asian)

7. Sweden (94% white)

8. France - (95% white)

9. Switzerland (96% white)

10. Japan (99.4% Asian)

[NOTE: This proves that facts are racist; please don't attack Craig or the Uninvited Ombudsman for this fact.]

As you can see, unless you're a liberal arts professor or community organizer, the top ten countries are predominately white or Asian. They are also democratic, industrialized, mostly capitalistic, and protective of civil liberties and property rights. In addition, several of the countries fund private schools with public money. And two of the countries, Norway and Canada, are rich in fossil fuels and other natural resources.

With its rank of 13th place, the United States didn't make the top ten. According to leftists in the White House and elsewhere, this is proof that the country sucks. Actually, it's proof that the leftists suck in statistical analysis and veracity.

The truth is that the United States would rank near the top if it had the racial make-up of Norway -- or even Minnesota. Conversely, Norway would not rank at the top if it shared a border with a third-world country and had to absorb, assimilate, and educate millions of legal and illegal immigrants, especially if many of them crossed the border with little education, low skills, no money, and poor health.

Moreover, the U.N.'s definition of "human development" is misleading. For example, an unskilled and uneducated Mexican with tuberculosis who earns four dollars a day can cross the U.S.-Mexico border and in a few months be earning eight times as much, be treated for free in a modern hospital, and get a free education for his children. Although his own human development will have skyrocketed, he brings down the ranking for the United States, because he is not as well-off as a blond, blue-eyed native Norwegian.

Based on the U.N.'s human development index, the key to the United States rising to the top in human development is not nationalized healthcare or a European-style social-welfare state. It is to deport all non-whites and non-Asians. Thankfully, that goes against American values. We'd rather be a diverse nation and be lower on the index than look like Norway and be higher on the index.

During his visit to Cairo, President Obama said that he was committed "to governments that reflect the will of the people." There, in a nutshell, is the problem with his thinking, as well as with the thinking of his predecessor, the thinking of almost all members of Congress and the Supreme Court, the thinking of most of the nation's intelligentsia and commentaria, and the thinking of most Americans.

What's wrong with what he said? Well, imagine in a prior life that Obama had visited the antebellum South before blacks had become a majority of the population. Imagine that during the visit, he had complimented Southern whites for having governments that reflected the will of the people: "Hey, y'all, my compliments for reflecting the will of the people and maintaining slavery."

An extreme example? Yes, but it shows that a moral government is not necessarily a government that reflects the will of the people. Rather, a moral government is one that protects the rights of the individual -- especially against the transgressions of the majority.

What Obama should have said in Cairo was that he was committed to governments that protect the rights of the individual -- that is, to governments that safeguard the life, liberty, speech, and property of each person. Such a government wouldn't allow a woman to be stoned for adultery just because a majority believes that Allah says it's okay.

Obama didn't speak this way, because in his view of government, the individual is secondary to the will of the majority, the collective, the common good, and a charismatic leader.

Take nationalized healthcare. Obama has said that physicians are going to have to "sacrifice" to fix the problems with the healthcare system -- problems, by the way, that have been caused largely by the government he proposes as the solution.

What he meant was that for the common good, physicians will be forced to make less money. This isn't as draconian as the Incas sacrificing virgins for the common good, because, after all, "only" doctors' livelihoods will be sacrificed, not their lives. But the thinking is the same.

The danger is that if physicians can be sacrificed one day, you can be sacrificed the next day. In fact, you will be sacrificed under nationalized healthcare. The underlying premise of nationalized healthcare is that you don't own your body; instead, the collective owns it. As such, the collective can dictate what medical care you receive, at what price, and by what provider.

Sadly, it isn't necessary to trample on individual rights to fix the problems with healthcare, just as it isn't necessary to trample on individual rights to fix any social problem. To the contrary, almost all social problems have been caused by trampling on individual rights, but that's just too basic and too true to be taught in schools or to be accepted by the ruling class.

For example, the horrendous socioeconomic problems among inner-city African Americans have their genesis in government programs -- slavery, followed by Jim Crow, redlining, and the forcible taking of money (property) from taxpayers to support a welfare system that has brought two-parent black families to near-extinction and triggered severe academic problems, dropout rates, and crime (with special support from the government war on some drugs).

The use of force for other than the protection of the individual never has a happy ending.

It took mankind thousands of years to develop a political, economic and social system in which the individual wasn't at the mercy of the mob, tribe, collective, majority, alpha male, chieftain, shaman, or monarch; or at the mercy of other people's envy, superstitions, ignorance, and irrationality.

The chains that kept individuals in slavery, serfdom, subservience, penury, fear and blind obedience to some collective will and a higher authority were broken by the concepts of individual liberty, property rights, free trade, the division of labor, and specialization -- the things that made America great. The result was an explosion in prosperity, creativity, innovation, longevity and health.

The shocking thing is not that President Obama is hurriedly reconnecting the chains of collectivism and statism, just like both major political parties. The shocking thing is that no one is gasping in shock.

(Washington - 2013) The Obama administration's promises about the
benefits of nationalizing the pizza industry have not materialized. Since
the industry was nationalized three years ago, Americans are facing pizza
shortages, pizzas in only one size and topping, and pizzas that taste like
the cardboard box they come in.

When announcing the pizza program in 2010, President Obama had
promised that pizza prices would fall, pizza quality would rise, and there
would be universal access to pizza. "After all," he had said in his typical
all-knowing manner that Americans have come to hate, "the pizza industry is
much simpler than the medical industry, which we completely nationalized
last year."

Before pizza was nationalized, virtually every American, whether
rural or urban, rich or poor, white or black, or a race somewhere in
between, could order a pizza customized to their liking and have it
delivered hot to their door in about 45 mins. Now, in the rare cases where
someone actually answers the phone at one of the government's regional
pizza kitchens, it takes six hours on average for a pizza to be
delivered.

The cost of the standard 12-inch pizza is $140, or a 20-fold
increase in three years. Half of the increase is due to the skyrocketing
inflation caused by the president's stimulus spending in 2009. A dollar now
buys only half as much as it did back then.

Moreover, pizzas are now being delivered by bicycle in rural
areas and by mass transit in urban areas, due to the president's climate
laws, which have made gasoline unaffordable for the typical delivery
person. Although delivery personnel in Minnesota replace the front tires of
their bikes with skis in winter and put snow chains on the rear tires,
pizzas still arrive at customers' doors frozen solid. In the summer in
Arizona, pizzas leave the government pizza kitchen uncooked and cook along
the way.

The Federal Department of Pizza is now bigger than the Department
of Agriculture. Thousands of central planners have discovered that without
the magic of market price signals, it's impossible to coordinate all of the
variables involved in getting a pizza to someone's door.

Hundreds of Pizza Dept. employees try to determine months ahead
who will order a pizza, at what time, on what day, and for what address.
Hundreds of other employees then calculate how much flour, cheese, tomato
sauce, and cardboard should be delivered to the regional pizza kitchens.
Once this is determined, the information is sent with the Pizza Division of
the Department of Labor, so that the kitchens have enough employees when
they need them. Due to ongoing computer glitches, the pizza kitchens are
fully staffed on Monday mornings but have a skeleton staff on Friday
nights. During the last Super Bowl, the kitchens were shut down because no
employees showed up for work.

The pizza forecasts are also sent to the Department of
Agriculture, which has to tell farmers how much wheat and tomatoes to grow,
cheese makers how much cheese to produce, and box makers how many boxes to
make. The Department of Transportation also has to be notified to have
18-wheeler trucks available to deliver the goods to the pizza kitchens.
It's to no avail, however, because the Department of Energy is still trying
to develop battery-powered trucks to replace the trucks that were banned by
the EPA for having internal combustion engines.

Clandestine pizza operations have sprung up across the land, and
anchovies are even being snuck into the country from Portugal in travelers'
suitcases. Customs personnel at New York's JFK Airport recently walked off
the job after one Customs agent opened a suitcase and cracked open his head
on the counter when he passed out from the stench.

The Justice Department has started a War on Pizza to shut down
the clandestine operations, but this has just shifted the problem to
Mexico. The Mexican government is on the verge of collapsing, due to the
violence and corruption of Mexican pizza cartels who sneak contraband
pizzas into the United States. Vinnie Rodriguez is said to be the kingpin
of pizza in Mexico. Someone in Cleveland can order a pizza from Vinnie in
Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and have it delivered piping hot with the toppings of
his choice in a tenth of the time it takes a government pizza kitchen to
fill an order for a cardboard pizza.

President Obama's popularity has dropped to five percent, showing
that Americans can tolerate having their medical care screwed up by the
government but not their pizza.

A new species has been found in North America. Its scientific name is Stupido-Erudio americanus. The common name is stupid-educated Americans.

They tend to congregate along the Pacific coast, the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic coasts, and in big cities across the land, especially where neighborhoods have been gentrified, where trendy restaurants serve pretty and tiny haute cuisine, where trendy supermarkets sell organic food grown in cow manure, where factories and refineries are unwelcome and have been exported elsewhere, and where light-rail lines have been built at great expense at the urging of Stupido-Erudio americanus, who, strangely, don't use the lines, preferring instead to drive the Prius, Volvos, BMWs, Porsches, Lexus's, and Infinitis to the trendy restaurants, where they use valet parking.

They have undergraduate and graduate degrees from the best universities; they marry within their own species but believe in diversity; they think that global warming is a serious problem and man-caused; they are non-judgmental about other people, unless the other people are hunters, soldiers, working-class workers, church-goers, Sarah Palin, or Joe the Plumber; they idolize Barack Obama; they think that George W. Bush and New York Times columnist David Brooks are free-market conservatives instead of statists like themselves; they make big bucks as lawyers, regulatory experts, specialized paper pushers, and software writers; they've never set foot in a factory, refinery, mine, meat-packing plant, power plant, or Wal-Mart; and they don't know any engineers, production supervisors, production workers, or other bourgeoisie and proletariats who work in such places and produce the stuff that they and other Supido-Erudio americanus use.

Joining with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, President-elect Barack Obama has announced new hope and change for alcoholics.

"The federal government is going to give alcoholics all of the liquor they want," said Obama yesterday from his president-elect office, standing behind a lectern emblazoned with his president-elect seal of office. In a demonstration of bipartisan cooperation, a red-nosed Paulson stood unsteadily by his side, holding a pint of Jack Daniels in one hand and pint of Wild Turkey in the other.

"Here's to you, Barack baby," said Paulson as he took a swig from the Jack Daniels bottle.

Earlier, Obama had announced that as soon as he officially takes office and is the real chancellor instead of the de facto one, he was going to address the American addiction to debt and credit by giving Americans a stimulus package of more debt and credit.

Not to be outdone, the Bush administration announced that it was going to establish a consumer credit facility to finance credit cards, car loans and mortgages. Americans should start receiving credit card solicitations within a week from the U.S. Treasury, which will issue them through its new subsidiary, Citibank. The cards will be financed by the communist Chinese government, which has a lot of money, due to a savings rate in communist China of almost 50 percent.

Some economists reacted negatively to the news, saying that easy money is what caused the housing bubble and subsequent financial meltdown in the first place. They have not been heard from since. There are rumors that Obama, borrowing a page from his idol FDR, has convinced the Bush administration to send the unpatriotic and disloyal economists to internment camps, as FDR did to Japanese Americans. Instead of building new camps in the desert, however, Obama plans to use the existing camp at Guantanamo once it is emptied of terrorists.

Mainstream reporters have been enthusiastically supporting Obama's economic plans, perhaps because they are mindful of how another Democrat icon, Woodrow Wilson, handled press criticism during the First World War: He threatened the press with imprisonment and actually jailed one recalcitrant editor for sedition under his Espionage Act. That might explain the media's double standard in characterizing Republicans as right-wing extremists who violate civil liberties but not characterizing Democrats the same way.

Of course, since 90 percent of Americans have been educated and reeducated in government schools under the tutelage of three million members of the National Education Association (aka teachers union), 90 percent of Americans only know the leftist version of history and economics.

Incidentally, the NEA, which supported Obama, has a list of recommended books on its website. At the top of the list is Rules for Radicals, the book by the radical Jewish-Russian anti-capitalist, Saul Alinsky, who was a mentor to Obama. The other books on the list are of the same genre. Books on liberty and free markets didn't make the list. http://www.nea.org/neanow/hcrlib.html

Clueless Republican soccer moms and dads love their public schools, completely oblivious to the values, beliefs and worldview brought into the classroom by the NEA. Fearing imprisonment at Guantanamo for disloyalty, the press has not connected the dots for the parents, especially the dot of Alinsky with the dot of the NEA with the dot of Obama. It's just a big dot con.

Understanding that the economic policies of Obama et al. will result in hyperinflation and the debasement of the dollar, self-educated Americans have been trying to buy gold coins, only to discover that none are available -- the US Mint and other mints have not kept up with demand. Could it be because their governments know that a shift to gold exposes the fact that they have been printing fiat money to hide their economic frauds?

Are you in the mainstream of American thinking? Do you have what it takes to be a member of Congress, president of the United States, reporter, pundit, K-12 teacher, college professor, or other trusted influencer or leader? Do you have the proper view of government, the economy, and other subjects?

To find out, take this simple test. Good luck!

Question 1

Business profits average about six percent of national income and keep the nation from having an economy like Cuba's. Federal, state and local governments consume about 44 percent of national income, versus only 12 percent in 1930.

Therefore, which of the following should be reduced?

a) Corporate profits
b) Government spending

If you selected "a," you're in line with mainstream thinking. Congrats! You get a free subscription to USA Today or a comic book of your choice, whichever you can read without moving your lips.

Almost all of the myriad political philosophies can be distilled to two competing ideas:

Individualism holds that people own their bodies and the fruits of their labor, and that they can do what they want with both as long as they don't harm anyone else. Under this idea, the purpose of government is to protect what people own from predators.

Collectivism holds that the king, emperor, alpha male, clan, tribe, state, Nancy Pelosi, or George W. Bush owns people's bodies and the fruits of their labor. Under this idea, the purpose of government is to force people to work for other people, either through slavery, serfdom, tribalism, nationalism, communism, fascism, socialism, Jacobinism, imperialism, mercantilism, utilitarianism, progressivism, modern-day liberalism, neo-conservatism, Obama-ism, Clinton-ism, or McCain-ism.

I can complicate this with an egghead discussion of the great philosophers through the ages, but we'd just go full circle and end up with the two competing ideas. You either own your body and the fruits of your labor, or other people own them.

With the exception of voluntary communes and utopian social experiments, collectivism depends on force. Public education is an example. People who don't use government schools are forced to subsidize those who do, including wealthy people who use them. If public schools are so great, then why do they depend on force?

The same question can be asked about nationalized healthcare.

With individualism and its sibling of capitalism, social and business relationships are voluntary, including feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, and educating the poor. The other "isms' are based on involuntary relationships.

The greatest terrors in the world have come at the hands of collectivists; yet collectivists continue to characterize individualists as mean-spirited, selfish and uncaring.

When taken to its logical conclusion, collectivism results in the absurdity of communism. But individualism would not result in absurdity if taken to its logical conclusion. There is no reductio ad absurdum of individualism.

Collectivists say that individualism leads to social Darwinism, but if individualism had prevailed around the world throughout human history, there would have been no slavery, no genocide, no mass starvation, no gulags, no Holocaust, no Jim Crow, no income gap between blacks and whites, and no constituency for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Hundreds of millions of people wouldn't have died for someone's collective notion.

The logical conclusion of individualism may be utopian, but it isn't absurd.

What is absurd is that collectivism has won in the United States, which was the last hope for individualism. Collectivism's victory has been so total that individualism is no longer even mentioned as an option by the political, media, business and education establishment.

Do you think that you own your body and the fruits of your labor? Don't be absurd.

About the Author

Freelance writer Alan Korwin is a founder and past president of the Arizona Book Publishing Association. With his wife Cheryl he operates Bloomfield Press, the largest producer and distributor of gun-law books in the country. Here writing as "The Uninvited Ombudsman," Alan covers the day's stories as they ought to read. Read more.